Kenny Loggins Blue Sky Riders

Monday night on PBS, I sit down with two-time Grammy Award-winning, multi-platinum singer/songwriter Kenny Loggins, who stops by to talk about his new children's CD and picture book, Frosty the Snow Man.

When I was 12 years old, my grandmother used to say to me, "You keep singing, Little Girl, and you're gonna make it. I want to live long enough to see you on that 'Tonight Show' with Johnny Carson. OK?"

You could kind of say that by being in this band, I'm married to two men. I have to trust them implicitly or this project simply will not work. The three of us fight and have our moments of not getting our way... we huff and we puff but in the end, we collectively decide what is best for our project and THAT'S what we end up doing.

In my life and career I have had the wonderful opportunity to meet famous people and you know what? It rarely goes well. I remember occasions where meeting my idols brought me more embarrassment than awe.

I remember the day I quit waitressing. I loved that restaurant because it was run by management who cared about their employees. I told my boss, "I'm really excited about being a professional songwriter but I want you to know that I'm holding on to my waitress uniform, just in case things don't work out." And what he said, I'll never forget.

We have always known in our heads what being a brand-new band on the road would be like, but we are starting to actually experience it now and it is daunting! No radio station is apparently too small or newspaper interview too early in the morning to turn down.

I was enjoying the beautiful scenery when about 12 minutes into it, I suddenly looked up and realized I was coming upon a huge mountain in front of me. As I got closer and closer, my heart started pounding and I started feeling very anxious. Why? Because I didn't have a view anymore.

I have had a lot of chances to know what it feels like to be Spock to a lot of amazing Kirks. I have toured as part of Carole King's Living Room Tour and stood to Ringo's left as part of the Roundheads. I am now in a band where I am one of three people at the front of the stage.

What made me want to get into this business anyway? Was it the piles of easy money? (Still looking.) Was it the respect of the artistic community? (Gave up looking for that in 2003.) Or was it something more twisted and dark?

Total strangers are telling us intimate things about their lives -- friends and families lost, ambitions forgotten or found -- and all these stories end with them saying that something we wrote or sang gave them a gift: the knowledge that they are not alone, that solutions are out there.

I had Bugs Bunny.....hell, even better than that...I had BULLWINKLE. Not a day goes by when I don't quote or reference something from Bugs or Bullwinkle and it always makes me and the person I am talking to (if they are the right age) smile knowingly. No one quotes the Jetsons or Teenage Ninja Turtles.

Thinking that the next song I write might always be the one that wins the lottery for me makes me either a) roll up my sleeves and throw myself into each day with a renewed sense of purpose, or b) cry softly into my pillow every morning, squeezing my eyes shut against the light streaming into my bedroom.

Imagine three people have a baby. One of them wants to dress the baby up in a pair of blue pants. One of them wants to dress him up like a sailor. I want to dress him up in something frilly yet tasteful. That is what co-producing a record is like in the studio. Co-dressing a baby.

What I now need in my life is to keep making music, to stay creative and follow the muse. There are no "laurels to rest upon." Not really. To feel productive and creative is my life-blood, and it sustains a sense of well-being that surpasses even the best endorphin high.

Bobby, my old friend and trusted adviser on all-things-career-oriented, told me: "The hard truth is, you're just too old to start over." His "advice" was not easy to ignore, and I could feel the "sensible," scared part of me take his words way too far to heart.

There's a magic that comes with being aware you're "onto something" while you're onto it. It fills you with a strange sense of purpose that seems to invigorate the project and deepen the vision, even when you feel like all you've got is fireflies to follow.